1. Field
Embodiments of the invention relate to hand off of recipes to manufacturing. More specifically, embodiments of the invention relate to synchronization of recipes to bills of materials.
2. Background
In process industries, research and development uses recipes to describe products. As used herein, “recipe” refers to a listing of ingredients and process step required to combine the ingredients into a finished product. Commonly, food products, chemical compositions and such are the result of a recipe. A recipe contains all the ingredients that are necessary for a product. Recipes tend to focus on calculation of physical and chemical properties, such as the chemical bonding properties, density, diet, nutrients, etc. Recipes also tend to be concerned with ratios of ingredients rather than absolute amounts. This type of structure is not suitable for manufacturing. Instead, a bill of materials that contains all of the data necessary for manufacturing is used. While the source of the bill of materials may be a recipe, a part of a recipe or a set of recipes, manufacturing must create a bill of materials out of that source.
Moreover, if the source recipe or recipes changes, for example, as a result of modification in research and development, manufacturing must be able to synchronize the changes into the bill of materials. This process is complicated by the fact that all data necessary for manufacturing is not necessarily present in the recipe. Additionally, the quantities of the recipe must be scaled consistent with the constraints of the production facility. It is also possible that one or more materials specified may not be available at a particular production site such that an alternative material must be used. An efficient way to synchronize recipe changes with bill of materials is desirable.